Global Policy Forum

By Raff Ellis

Simply put, the arguments in favor of war fall into the following categories:

• We are already at war because al-Qaeda declared war on us. (Somehow we make the transference from al-Qaeda to Iraq in this statement.)

• There are moral wars, such as WWII that the U.S. was justified entering. (No preemptive wars are mentioned in this argument.)

• Iraq is a compliant safe haven for the very same immoral terrorists with whom we are at war. (Note that Afghanistan was not in the original Axis of Evil but was the primary safe haven of the al-Qaeda terrorists.)

• North Korea is not a threat because diplomacy is a viable option. (Even though they have nuclear capabilities and missile delivery systems.)

• Saddam Hussein is a brutal tyrant who has crushed his opposition in spite of the U.N. imposed no-fly zones. Diplomacy is not an option for dealing with a country that trains and harbors terrorists (which ones are never mentioned). He is stalling for time and has defied U.N. Resolutions for 12 years and is a threat to peace in the region. (Iraq is the only country being threatened with invasion for ignoring U.N. Resolutions, even though Israel has defied U.N. Resolution 242 and many others for 36 years.)

Most of these arguments have implicit moral underpinnings, for if you make the case that Iraq is an immoral, "rogue" regime, attacking it becomes by default the "moral" thing to do. We are continually cautioned not to fall into the trap of appeasing Saddam as Europe appeased Hitler. This emotionally powerful analogy brings a disturbing element to the table that would smother most peace promoters lest they be put on the side of the dreaded immoral "appeasers."

This rather transparent debate tactic is calculated to arouse emotion and tar the "enemy" with a hated icon that everyone recognizes. Comparing Saddam to Hitler, however, does serious injustice to Hitler's villainy. Hyperbole is an important element in this specious argument because no one in the region, including the insincere Israel, believes Saddam is a threat. Bush's claim that Saddam is a threat to the U.S. and world peace is a canard that even he doesn't believe.

Another raison d'etre for going after Saddam is: "Iraq has tried to kill British and American aviators" [who were bombing and killing Iraqis, by the way]. The U.N. did not institute the no-fly zones over Iraq even though this lie has been perpetuated by the Bush administration. The zones were imposed by the U.S. and Britain after the U.N. cease-fire was accepted by Iraq, ostensibly to protect the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south. Simply put, it is an attempt by those two allies to harass and vex the Iraqi regime by encouraging insurrection from within and to prepare the ground for the ultimate invasion. Of course, the insurrection idea didn't work.

Another common falsehood is: "Iraq had prevented UNSCOM from fully carrying out its mission and kicked out the inspectors in 1998." The truth is that the U.N. withdrew its inspectors to get them out of harm's way because it was told that Britain and the U.S. intended to conduct a bombing campaign, which also was not sanctioned by the U.N.

The argument that Iraq is a safe haven for terrorists is not supported by one shred of evidence. None of the terrorists identified in attacks on the U.S., here or abroad, were Iraqi, were trained by Iraq or financed by Iraq. The sheikhdoms in the Gulf, all of whom are temporarily our best friends these days, supplied the vast majority of funding and personnel for those operations. Iraq is the only secular Arab Muslim state in the Middle East and it is interesting that we simultaneously rail against the "fanatic Islamic terrorists" and promote war against the secular Islamists, who in turn are despised by the self-same fundamentalists we have come to fear and hate.

We must make "war against terrorism" to prevent any more horrific attacks, and we must "smoke out" the enemy wherever they are. Look, we can't find Eric Robert Rudolph, an American terrorist on the most wanted list for the past five years, and he's here in the U.S.! Even so, we were going to "smoke out" bin Laden and he was hiding in a foreign country that has enough caves to house all the troglodytes in Washington and then some.

The administration realized from the start they might not succeed in finding bin Laden and became panicked at the thought that the success of their campaign for revenge would be judged on that objective alone. Memories of our inability to conquer a virtually unidentifiable enemy in Vietnam were still remembered so the neocons had to find an identifiable substitute. The smoke from the WTC hadn't even diminished before the Iraqi blip appeared on their radar screen. If you follow the genesis of the "war on terrorism" from its onset in Afghanistan to the imminent target, Iraq, you will see a gradually changing story that defies any semblance of logic. No matter where the bar was placed, if it looked as though Iraq was going to make a successful leap, Bush raised the bar. He undermined the U.N. from the beginning, posturing that we'd go it alone if we had to so they had better vote our way; it's the moral thing to do.

Logically, how can you, on the one hand, say that Iraq has disobeyed U.N. Resolutions and then say you will defy the U.N. if it doesn't sanction war to enforce them? The U.N. was founded on the notion that the combined efforts of the world's nations could avert war! How far we have come from that ideal. The voices of peace are now denigrated when they should be revered. Calling Kofi Annan the Neville Chamberlain of the 21st century is but one of the more immoral, derogatory attacks made against those would opt for peace. France and Germany have been vilified and characterized in the mainstream (i.e., administration mouthpiece) media as irrelevant, ungrateful and gutless.

So, we are going to war to kill untold numbers of people because of a "potential threat" posed by their country. How many nations could fall under such a definition? Bush, seeking the high ground of morality says, "Saddam killed his own people!" He will soon teach Saddam a lesson by killing more Iraqis than the dictator ever could.

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